Fidelity
by lapsus calami
Summary: Yellow Admiral', 'The Surgeon's Mate' spoilers. Sophia Aubrey, faithful to the last, is grievously injured at a sudden discovery. When their parents' relationship begins to fail, the children fear for their family.
1. Discoveries

Title: Fidelity  
  
Summary: 'Yellow Admiral', 'The Surgeon's Mate' spoilers. Sophia Aubrey, faithful to the last, is grievously injured at a sudden discovery.  
  
Note: Gah. I was just doodling, and this comes to me. oo; I am a slave to my pen – honestly. I was just about to go to sleep, too... -Sighs- More or less will be continued until the end of 'The Yellow Admiral', possibly in two parts.  
  
Dedications: For SilentTrainConductor. I am, as always, a slave to my favoured readers' wants, and hence whipped up a good book-verse tale. Ditto goes for Arwen Lune. Also, for Thig (Dray was going to be Bonden, but he wouldn't have been there... =Tear slides down cheek= Sorry, love. Next chapter, probably, or the next.)

* * *

'Which I don't WANT to be off to Ulster – which I want to stay HERE!'  
  
'Ay! 'Tisn't none of our business about the goings on in your soppy Ireland! None of that!'  
  
Sophie sighed and rolled her eyes. 'Now, girls – what will Auntie Frankie say to that? She had set up for you two to come in, for her new girls's school.' She smiled benignly, never once stopping the consistent click of her needles, the embroidery in her lap.  
  
Fanny and Charlotte glared at their mother, identical in their fury. 'Auntie Frankie can bloody sod off,' answered Fanny (or conceivably Charlotte) with scathing fervour.  
  
'SOPHIA!'  
  
A seaman entered the drawing room, looking rather wilted and resigned. Dray bowed his grey head and tried to look useful. 'Which your mother, Mrs Williams, is in, marm,' he said, stating the obvious.  
  
At that, a puffed up looking elder woman flounced in, clutching a parcel of letters in her hand and hair all chaos – her cheeks were a flaring scarlet, full of righteous indignation. 'SOPHIA!' she cried again, positively lewd. Dray, greatly suppressed by the arrival of this older, shrieking woman, was reminded of a banshee and quickly made his exit.  
  
'What is it, Mama?' asked Sophie, looking perplexed. 'Girls, just run along, then...' The girls remained, 'though a little more subdued, but both mother and grandmother were far too preoccupied to notice.  
  
'Your HUSBAND!' Mrs Williams said in a fierce tone. 'Has had an affair – gotten some paramour in Halifax with CHILD!' Charlotte and Fanny looked at each other, both as confused as their mother.  
  
Sophie, who had gone quite red with surprise, now paled considerably; the colour drained from her face in a matter of moments, and her hands began to shake terribly. The needlework fell and clattered on the floor loudly. 'I – I beg your – what?' the poor woman stuttered, and her mother grimaced.  
  
'Your husband,' she repeated, voice low with vehemence, 'has committed the unforgivable sin of fornication with some Halifax – WOMAN!' Charlotte raised an eyebrow and muttered something to her sister about what but did Grandmam expect, but for him to have done fornication with a dame. Fanny hushed her and continued to listen. 'Your husband,' Mrs Williams continued, 'went and got that Nova Scotia – /female/ - with child!'  
  
Sophie did not reply, but her hands wrung themselves of their own accord. Mrs Williams, quite red in the face, heaved and huffed, looking like an elderly puffer fish with very dark, angular eyebrows. 'Well?' she shouted. 'What are you going to do about it, Sophia?'  
  
Sophie's lip quivered. Charlotte was on the verge of telling her grandmother to sod off, but Fanny placed a hand over her sister's mouth. 'Are you not positively appalled?' asked Mrs Williams, aghast. 'Not perfectly LIVID at this gross betrayal?'  
  
'B-betrayal?' stammered Sophie. 'I – I would not quite say a betrayal –'  
  
'This is an injustice!' Mrs Williams interjected with deliberation. 'An act of treachery – of infidelity!' She leered at her daughter menacingly, willing her to grow as angry as she.  
  
'I – I daresay he will apologise...' was the only reply, timorous and subdued in a low whisper.  
  
'APOLOGISE!' repeated Mrs Williams. 'He does not deserve the OPPORTUNITY to apologise!' Charlotte was now growing quite difficult to maintain – her cheeks were red, and her eyes were narrowed with fury. Fanny, too, was extremely irritated; but being the more sensible of the two (if not less spirited), she controlled her temper, as well as Charlotte's.  
  
A little colour rose in Sophie's cheeks. 'He... He did do a grievous wrong.'  
  
'I DARESAY HE DID!' Mrs Williams cried. 'Doubtless a regular purveyor of the world's BROTHELS!' Charlotte muttered something low, muffled by the palm of Fanny's hand. Fanny was an unsurpassed shade of crimson, and she was glaring with amazing deliberation of loathing for this meddling grandmother of hers. Both kept silent (or at least stifled). However, sheer hate, mostly out of loyalty to their father, showed through the narrow slits of their eyes.  
  
'I cannot b-believe he would do such a thing to me!' said Sophie, a little louder. Her eyes shown with tears.  
  
'But he did!' responded Mrs Williams with venom. 'He did a horrid, horrid thing – he betrayed you, he betrayed the children! An act against justice! An act against your family!'  
  
'He did a wicked, wicked thing!' Sophie said. The tears were flowing freely now, a mixture of mourning and self-righteousness.  
  
'Yes!' brayed Mrs Williams. 'You have every right to be angry – any lady with pride – SELF RESPECT! – would be!'  
  
Jealousy easily swayed Sophie Aubrey's sweet little heart; and so it did then. Sophie's cheeks reddened suddenly, the only slight show of pink turning into a furious scarlet. 'HOW DARE HE!' she cried, and with that, left the drawing room with surprising haste. She slammed the door shut behind her, and the following echoes seemed to send the room into darkness.  
  
Mrs Williams wore an unbelievably complaisant smirk on her worn and wrinkled features. She still did not notice the presence of the two little girls who had witnessed this sudden change in their lives – the possible destruction of their family. Charlotte was being restrained, now by Dray, who had snuck back in, as well as a half-hearted Fanny, the words 'KEEP TO YOUR OWN, YOU HORRID GODDAMNED SHREW!' only just unformed on her lips. 


	2. Troubles Begin

Note: To be sure, you may all expect more of Jack and all the sailors next chapter. I'm thinking about giving Stephen a fairly prominent role next chapter, as well – perhaps some Bonden, too. So, it won't be just Sophie and the twins moping around. Yay.  
  
'How could she do that?'  
  
The rooms in Woolcombe were not as comforting as the ones at home – to be sure, they were larger, more elaborate, better taken care of. Yet, the shadows that lurked in the corners, the dark encompasses, were neither warm nor comforting. It was felt all the more as the girls sat on the bed they shared, the door closed against prying eyes and (more importantly) ears.  
  
'How could she –,' Charlotte gasped through a sob, 'could she do that?' she repeated piteously. The child wiped her sleeve against her tear-stained cheek, and was suddenly overborne by anger again. 'How could she do that?' the girl roared.  
  
The room boomed with the sound of the girl's voice. It echoed slightly as she gave a deep, shuddering breath, and relapsed into tears.  
  
'Horrid old meddling BITCH,' Fanny muttered to herself. She sat with her legs swinging over the side, salty beads dripping from where they gathered at her quivering chin. She was much more contained – reserved – than her sister, but her words were carried her meaning further.  
  
'She's just been itching for some means to get Mam in a fix,' mumbled Charlotte, inhaling deeply through her nose. She kicked off her slippers from where she knelt, arms folded over the side of the bed. Fatigued from tears, she laid her dark head against the soft comforter. 'Now she has.'  
  
'She's ne'er liked Da,' replied Fanny in a conspiratorial murmur. 'Never.'  
  
'Damn her. Damn her to 'ell...' Charlotte sniffed, her running nose taking away from her initial dramatic feeling.  
  
There was a moment of silence. An uncomfortable one, since the twins shared nigh everything, generally through a torrent of whispers, giggles, and topgallant screeches. Fanny shifted, obviously discomfited. Charlotte wiped her nose again.  
  
'What do you reckon Mam's going to do?'  
  
Charlotte blinked. 'What do you mean, what's she going to do? What can she do?' she replied. In another case, perhaps, the two would separate – never correspond, without rigid, forced formality, again. Possibly even divorce. Yet that was the impossible. One had to recall, this was Jack and Sophie Aubrey.  
  
Unless...  
  
Charlotte looked her sister in the eye, who was trying her best to look nonchalant. 'You don't – you don't think –' Charlotte began, but trailed off in a low moan. A tear ran down Fanny's cheek. 'They can't,' Charlotte said quietly to herself, mostly to prevent such a thought from reaching home. From reaching realisation, acceptance. 'They love each other too much.'  
  
Fanny finally returned Charlotte's desperate gaze. 'Mayhap that's why they would.'  
  
Her mother's words wouldn't let go.  
  
Sophie scratched out a line, sobbed for a moment, then wrote it out again. The words that her mother had shouted seemed to claw at her heart – they wouldn't release their grip. Even if she had wanted to...  
  
She glimpsed back at the head of the page. 'Mr Aubrey'. Formal. Without familiarity, without love. That made it that much easier to slip it into the post box, metaphorically speaking; but it was so hard to write.  
  
'In open contempt of your promise' – underline. '– before God's altar' – double underline. Sophie reached for her handkerchief and blotted some of the tears that were gathering at her jaw. 'Deny it if you dare,' she thought, an inward snarl. 'I have every last damnable letter.'  
  
It was then that Sophia lost her composure. The pen slipped from her grasp, and she lay her head and arms down on the papers before her. The cold feeling of the wet ink against her cheek; the deep, quaking sobs; the shivers that were now convulsive with sadness. She did not want to send this letter. Deep within, past the jealousy, the seeds of virtue, the want to lord over her husband, better in morals – she did not want to send this letter. She loved him.  
  
She would never admit it. Sophie inhaled shakily as she sat upright, the tears now mixing freely with the ink. She could not admit it.  
  
'You left her bed and came into mine.'  
  
Her pen traced words that, beneath the resentment, she did not mean. Finally, she finished with, 'Yours Faithfully', and a barely decipherable pair of initials – 'SW'.  
  
Five days passed since Sophie had sent off her letter. Then another four. Indeed, each day seemed long and short to all the members of the house, except perhaps Mrs Williams.  
  
The girls, having witnessed their mother hand an ominous looking parcel to the postman, knew it was only a matter of time. George, who only just feel the edge of anxiety, remained for the most part oblivious, thankfully entertained by the presence of Diana's new coach, and that of his new cousin, only just recently introduced, Brigid.  
  
Despite the feeling of foreboding, Charlotte and Fanny did their best to keep the younger two in at least some good spirits. They sang and laughed, if not only for their benefit.  
  
It was one of these days, when Charlotte had decided to take up a chorus of 'Roast Beef of Old England', and she began to march merrily out the door. 'Our father, of old, were robust, stout, and strong, and kept open house, with good cheer, all day long, which made their plump tenants rejoice in this song –' she rang out as she slipped through the doorway. Suddenly, she saw a figure, on horseback, about the horizon. Her jaw dropped, but she promptly amended it. 'Dignity, m'lass,' she muttered quietly, as her father drew ever closer.  
  
She stood there, staring, for some time, and it took a good deal longer for him to notice her there. When he did, his blue eyes full of surprise, Charlotte leaned back and shouted, 'It's Papa!'  
  
George, who had begun to yell the following verse, stopped abruptly, and ran past his sister to greet him, eager to find a new victim to tell about Cousin Diana's coach, brand new and poz.  
  
'He's home,' she muttered out of the corner of her mouth as she and Fanny stalked down the corridor, down towards the west wing of the house – the direct opposite side from that of their mother. 'This is not going to be pretty.'  
  
Charlotte's words could not have been truer. No more than fifteen minutes later, they heard their father stomp back out the door, and their mother's racking sobs. Mrs Williams was trying her very best not to look pleased, to look at least partially decent, but failed utterly. Fanny felt her resolve shatter, and the tears grew at her eyes. 'I wish we were at Ashgrove.'  
  
Note: oo; This must be confusing for those who haven't read 'The Surgeon's Mate'. Hence, I'll try to explain this as easily as I may... SPOILER: Jack has an affair with a lady from Halifax, and she writes him letters, saying that he had gotten her with child. However, it was all a ruse in an attempt to steal Jack's money. END SPOILER. There. Oo;; 


	3. Hope Despite

Note: Uuum... Not necessarily accurate, in character, or anything. But my head hurts, and I can't think of anything else. xD Well, that's usually when my best material is written, anyways. Oo; Qualms about Charlotte's lack of control? Bonden's sudden appearance? Or praises? Review, dammit!  
  
Another Note: Apologies on how long this took to get up. Writer's block is terrible, and working through it is worse. I think it's acceptable enough, even if it isn't quite so very brilliant, or up to the usual mark. Much love to you all.  
  
Dedication: For my brother, even 'though he'll never read this - I will ALWAYS be in your corner, despite everything.

* * *

'Why do you always have to ruin everything, you horrid, HORRID old shrew?'  
  
'Charlotte!' Fanny cried, tugging at her collar. Yet Charlotte wouldn't listen. She was glaring daggers towards Mrs Williams, and probably would have leapt, had Barrett Bonden, arrived only some time before, had not been holding her back at the arms. Her voice was a dry shout.  
  
'You blasted, goddamn bitch!' Charlotte snarled. 'Don't you DARE speak of my Da as that, ever, EVER –'  
  
'Charlotte Aubrey!'  
  
Sophie stood at the door, pale and terrible. Her hands swayed slightly at her sides, but she was gazing intently at her daughter. Charlotte was coughing, a hoarse sound mixed with racking sobs. She was only just supported by the sailor, who was struggling to keep her from falling entirely to the ground. Fanny was glaring at Mrs Williams, tears streaming down her face. George looked blank, as 'though he could scarcely comprehend what everyone was on about.  
  
'On your feet,' said Barrett quietly, and without another word, ushered Charlotte towards the door. George lingered for a moment, but vanished. Fanny was still staring with the amazing intensity. Mrs Williams trembled, back against the wall, and her pale face, while wrenched with fear, still held a fierce triumph.  
  
Sophie glared at her mother. 'What did you say?' she demanded.  
  
Mrs Williams, 'though ruffled, was still the same horrid old shrew. 'Don't you dare speak to me in that tone, Sophia,' she replied haughtily. 'Don't you dare allow yourself to take that tone with me.'  
  
'What did you say?' Sophie repeated, the steely tone in her voice refusing to fade. 'Mama, I demand to know what it is that you said!'  
  
Mrs Williams faltered for a moment, surprised to see her daughter in such a way. Usually, she could easily commandeer over little Sophia... 'I simply said that their father was a disgusting rake,' she said listlessly. 'I said that he was worthless, an adulterer, and that they needn't worry their little heads about him.' Her voice had a galling informality about it, and Sophie wavered at her mother's lack of concern.  
  
Sophie appeared as 'though she were about to say something, but could not find the words. After a moment, she turned away from her mother, disgusted. 'Fanny,' she said. 'Go to your room, please.' Fanny held her stance, staring with loathing towards the old woman.  
  
'Fanny,' Sophie repeated forcefully. 'Go to your room. Now.' Begrudgingly, the girl strode off, slamming the door behind her, and looking perfectly hateful.  
  
Sophie exhaled slowly as she turned away from her mother and back out the way she had came. More often than not, she wished to fly off the handle at the old wretch, and a sense of envy and resent filled her bosom as she went back into the study, and back into sweet solitude.

* * *

'You will most certainly have to be off to Ulster now.'  
  
Charlotte made no reply. She was sitting, rather sulkily, at the little miniature writing desk. She was looking rather intently at a silver spoon that she had, turning about lazily in her hands on her lap. Bonden frowned and took off his hat. 'You haven't naught to say about what you just did?' he continued, looking at the little girl with displeasure.  
  
Fanny opened the door and slammed it behind her. Bonden winced. He had heard the door crash shut downstairs – that would be two doors to check for broken hinges. Petulant as her sister, she landed on the bed with a thump (another wince – that would more or less be needed to be checked, as well) and buried her face in the pillows.  
  
'Where's George?' asked Charlotte after a moment, sniffing.  
  
'I can't say I rightly know,' answered Barrett. 'Probably out in the field, at a guess, I'd say.'  
  
'I hate her,' muttered Charlotte darkly. 'No respect – speaking on my da like that – wretched, whore-ridden WENCH.'  
  
'Now, none of that!' said Bonden with a scowl. 'Much as I agree,' he put in a lower voice before raising it again, 'I can't have you talking on Mrs Williams like that. It ain't right, see?'  
  
'She's going to tear the whole 'ouse apart!'  
  
Fanny had lifted herself from the soft depths of the cushions and was staring at Bonden with amazing passion. Barrett was somewhat taken aback; he had known the twins since they had been born, and it was always, always Charlotte, hackles risen and claws unsheathed, ready to lash out. Yet now, Fanny had been agitated to the point where she couldn't stand it any longer.  
  
'She's going to tear us all apart,' she said again, voice fading. 'I – I can't...' Fanny drew in a ragged breath.  
  
Barrett looked at both, Charlotte at the desk, Fanny sobbing into the pillows, and shook his head. Both were loyal to their father, but defiance could only go so far. They were children, and couldn't really understand the seriousness of the matter. He couldn't be quite sure, but... 'I've to be back to your da,' said Barrett finally, breaking the silence. He moved towards the door.  
  
One of the twins had moved from their places. It was Charlotte, a slip of paper in her hand, extended towards him. 'Give him this,' she said blankly. 'With our dear love. Please.'  
  
Bonden stared at it, a torn piece of flowery stationary. Words were scrawled on both sides. Bonden nodded and took it. 'Ay, miss,' he said with a weak smile.  
  
'Thankee.'

* * *

'Sir.'  
  
Barrett Bonden stood aboard the deck of the Bellona, looking quite forlorn. The captain was looking out towards the offshore squadron, his expression dark with some far off worry. Bonden made a leg inexpertly.  
  
Jack Aubrey started out of his inner contemplation and found his coxswain looking at him expectantly. 'Yes, Bonden?' he said blankly. The sailor, as far as Jack could tell, had come aboard when the Ringle had returned.  
  
'Which I brought you a note, sir,' replied Bonden, handing Jack a scrap of paper, a faint pink colour. 'Which it's from Fanny – no, Charlotte. Er, well – I s'pose it's from both.'  
  
Jack, looking surprised, took it with a small mutter of thanks, and folded it open. He squinted in the sun's fading light, and read the words of encouragement, of their most lasting love and devotion to he that sired them, and a good many other things that were considerably blotched and smudged by a clumsy hand. Jack smiled softly to himself.  
  
'I cannot much say for Mam, or how she's turning things,' it read towards the end, 'but I do know that Mam's mam, Mrs Williams, is to go back to Bath. Her friend's husband has turned to be a criminal of some sort, and Grandmam is to be witness at the trial. I don't know if even she knows it yet, but I heard it from Dray, and we both know that his sources are usually aright. So, if I were to guess, things ought to get a lot better in the light of yourself.'  
  
It finished with a couple of endearments, and finally a rather deliberate pair of signatures.  
  
Stephen was in the Downs, Jack contemplated. Hopefully, Sophie would have at least of thought of perhaps forgiving him. With any luck... With any hope.


End file.
